Sanrio Says Hello Kitty Is ‘Personification of a Cat’

Hello Kitty, seen here at a Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, made her debut 40 years ago.

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The assertion that Hello Kitty is not a cat spread through the online community quickly over the past 24 hours, with most major news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, posting stories on the subject.

But Tokyo-based Sanrio, creator of the popular character, told Japan Real Time that some details were lost in translation as the story went viral.

Here are excerpts of our conversation with a Sanrio spokesman, Kazuo Tohmatsu.

WSJ: What is Hello Kitty?

Mr. Tohmatsu: It is a character, a 100% personification done in the motif of a cat. This is nothing new. We’ve always had this setting since Hello Kitty made its debut 40 years ago.

WSJ: So it is not a cat, correct?

Mr. Tohmatsu: We have a character called Kero Kero Keroppi as well, and that character is a frog, because it has elements of frogs in what he does. But Hello Kitty doesn’t [have elements of a cat]. It is more of an anthropomorphism.

WSJ: So it’s correct to say she is not a cat?

Mr. Tohmatsu: It is difficult to answer that question, but our answer is that Hello Kitty is a personification of a cat–a character.

WSJ: Does that mean it’s a human girl?

Mr. Tohmatsu: Well. It’s difficult to provide a specific classification of what she is, or say something definitely, since everything is set in a world of characters.

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